Saturday glam, old socks and glitter

Monthly Archives: September 2015

We’re mildly giddy here at Norwich DlikeT HQ. We have it on very good authority (honestly, as ex-hacks we’ve checked our sources and EVERYTHING) that *yer actual Tess Daly* is now aware of the “online phenomenon” that is Dress like Tess. Oh yes. Can we fondly imagine that she will soon descend the Strictly stairs clutching a Barbie/wooden spoon version of herself? Probably not, let’s be honest. But right now it’s exciting enough that *yer actual Tess Daly* might even play along with DlikeT while watching on catch-up.

Is that postmodernism?

Or is it dressing a doll in kitchen roll?

Anyway, over on facebook.com/dressliketess we received stacks of Tesses, Claudias and Darceys so thank you to everyone who played along this weekend.

Let’s start on Friday night… Tess in red, Claudia in black and white (reminiscent of Tess’s dress from the 2014 launch) and much excitement about the bloke called Gleb.

Drum roll for our first Tess of the weekend, from Jody in Basingstoke. Well, at least that’s where Facebook says Jody is. Perhaps the “Monaco” setting is broken.

Now, we’ll be honest. The Norwich office had popped to the park after school and then the pub (there’s a garden, OK? the kids were playing out). Back home, various other family members arrived… and as a consequence our lounge was a slightly chaotic mix of pizza, dolls, fabric, excited kids and fizzy wine.

Like it. And down in the far south west, some other members of the DlikeT family, Char and her daughter, gave us Wonder Tess

There’s a fantastic video on facebook.com/dressliketess that Char’s husband has made showing the proper actual spinning transformation of Wonder Tess into Wonder Woman. It’s brilliant, but annoyingly I can’t link to it from here. Grrr. Anyway, it’s on facebook. Did we mention that?

Meanwhile, back in Norwich, a pair of Claudias. Aunty Heather’s features ACTUAL STITCHING, and almosteightyearold has gone for it with a “wig”. Instant Claudia.

So…. Saturday. Tess in white, Claudia in black and away we go. Our first Tess came from Tiff in Buckinghamshire. Or possibly Berkshire. Somewhere leafy, anyway.

Textbook DlikeT stuff here, anyway. As regular player Sally from North London says: “Classic kitchen roll and wool.”

Here’s Tiff’s Tess, followed by a “triple Tess” from her household. Do we award extra points for multiple Tess-ery? (Were we awarding points, which we’re not, although it’s a thought, isn’t it? Perhaps we could set up a premium-rate phone line.) If the Tesses were arranged in a repeating pattern, would they be Tess-ellated?

And here’s Sally’s Tess

Over in Leicester, the jewel of the East Midlands, let’s say a big “hello” to Rebecca, who gave us a Tess, a Claudia AND a Darcey. Oh yes. Rebecca rocks. Rebecca said that Tess’s white dress was “too easy” this week. She may have a point. We like Claudia’s fringe and frankly, her Darcey is beyond compare. See — there IS life after One Direction.

Shall we see another Darcey? Yeah, let’s. That blue neckline was a gift for the scissor-happy players of DlikeT, really, wasn’t it? Anyway, this is from Ellie in the deep south west.

Classy like Darcey.

Meanwhile, the Norwich office moved a few doors down the road (and around the corner) for a little Tess-age. The nearly eightyearolds are totes over dressing dolls and all about the immersive Tess/Claudia experience.

We did a Tess with white fabric from Granny’s “this might be useful for that thing you do with the Strictly” pile and a black hairband.

We tried to go for the “real Tess eats doll Tess” shot here, in a sort-of “popular culture devours itself” kind of a way, but actually we fear it appears as if *yer actual Tess Daly* is considering cannibalism. Which we’re pretty sure she isn’t.

Meanwhile, potential disaster in the Herts office: a loo roll shortage! Fortunately, there’s plenty of ribbon in the Home Counties.

Wow. Is that everyone? What a lot of Tesses. Thank you to EVERYONE who played along — more next week. Strictly is about eight hours long on Saturday so you may want to pack a Thermos. Of prosecco. We’re off down the market to see if the ribbon man has any offcuts.

It’s Saturday, it’s half past nine, the Norwich office is a few glasses down and it’s only flipping Strictly. Yes yes yes the spanglefest is back and that means we’ve reinstalled ourselves on the sofa** with the Barbies and the sellotape.

So. Tess in blue. With net and sequins. A fact we should have gleaned from the red-carpet spesh on red button but were too busy trying to re-create the photoshoot frock to have clocked on that tonight’s show was of course a pre-record. Anyway, we started with me and 6-y-o, quietly and carefully sticking blue sequins to midnight blue fabric and sticking net under Tess’s skirt.

Then.

Then, 7-y-o, her lovely mate, her mate’s mum and her mate’s brother arrived and we discovered that a) 10-y-o boys aren’t that arsed about Strictly, b) daughter’s mate’s fabulous mum has a hidden talent for fashioning doll accessories from foil (seriously, there’s a craft fair somewhere with her name on it) and c) the kids would prefer to dress as Tess/Claudia than dress dolls as Tess/Claudia.

First, let’s say a big hello to Rachael from Norwich, who has the dubious honour of being our first Tess of the season. Well, what can we say about Rachael? She can run 10k faster than most of us can make a fish-finger-and-oven-chip dinner. That’ll do. Any road, here’s her sparkly Tess.

Lovely.

Meanwhile, here’s a Tess from regular player Sally in north London. You remember Sally; she’s a top barrister by day. Tess-wrangler by night. At lunchtime we suspect she swims with dolphins.

What did the DLikeT offices come up with? Well, as per usual, Herts outperformed Norwich for detail… Here’s the Norwich entry:

We thought we were doing pretty well here: sequins, net AND fabric… but this is marvs:

Oooooh yeah. Hertfordshire, douze points. The Herts office said it was “crepe”. See what they did there.

Meanwhile, Claudia was resplendent in a black-and-silver number. We had a bit of a disaster: it turns out you can’t stick the foil you used to keep teatime sausages warm for the pub-soaked Mr Dress Like Tess and his brother to polyester using a Wilko-own-brand gluestick. So we dressed the 7-y-o as Claude instead. Her mate went on to draw her a “fringe” with B&M “tattoo pens”.

Fortunately, the Tess-ers out there were on hand to rescue the situation. Let’s go to Leicester. (Actually, let’s. The Norwich office was born and raised in the jewel of the East Midlands.) Here’s Rebecca Griffith and Louis from TV’s One Direction. We like. And yer actual Louis… future career?

But we really must raise a glass to regular DLikeT-er Charlotte, formerly of Hatfield and now of *somewhere else*, who came up with this truly ingenious recreation of Ms Winkleperson’s bustier. It’s only the ruddy crossword. Come on. Three across: “Saturday night doll-and-sock nonsense (5,4,4)”. We should really apply for a job setting the Guardian crossword. They could call us “Spangles”. Or “P45.”

Well, congratulations all you Tess-ers. We’ve kicked back now with the theme from Magpie. If only we were joking.

Want to play next week? We think you know you do….

**we’ve got a new sofa this series, as it goes. New second-hand. Yer actual leather. Yeah. Look at us.

It’s only flipping BACK. This Saturday sees the launch show, which we imagine will last for hours but could actually only last 10 minutes because all that will really happen is the announcement of the partnerships. But anyway, we found the “red carpet special” on iPlayer and dressed our first Tess of the season.

So if you’ve never played Dress Like Tess before (and if not, where the ruddy flip have you BEEN?) here’s what to do.

watch Strictly

see what Tess Daly is wearing

recreate said frock on a barbie/monster high doll/wooden spoon/action man/hello kitty

send a pic to facebook.com/DresslikeTess

decide Tess’s frock is a bit dull and make a Claudia instead

So… what do you need? Well, not a lot. Foil and old tights will be your best friend. Kitchen roll and glitter glue your best buds. Sellotape… well, without sello there would be no DLikeT.

Anyway, what did we think of the red carpet spesh? Not a lot, to be honest. The slebs are the usual B/C-list and the kids shouted “out in week one” when J Vine appeared on screen. We did get a chance to make a Tess. In black, although her red carpet dress was a rather exciting blue but we didn’t see a great deal of it.

Play along on Saturday! Send in your pics! Dress Like Tess! Gaudier than Claudia! Will we beat last year’s peak of a man in a frock with a duster on his head being Tess? Will the Dora the Explorer doll re-live her weekly role as Claudia?